Albert Park College is a relatively young addition to the inner-Melbourne bayside school landscape, but it has grown quickly since opening to its first students in 2011 on the site of a former school on Danks Street. Foundation principal Steve Cook was given a near-blank slate, an empty building with no furniture, staff or students, and the brief to design learning spaces that felt more like an art studio than a traditional classroom. That approach has carried through as the college has expanded. What began as a single campus is now five: the main Danks Street site handles most of Years 7, 8, 10 and senior classes; a Year 9 campus operates from modernised heritage buildings on Bay Street in Port Melbourne; and the Pickles Street campus, housed in the old Bastow schoolhouse on the corner of Pickles and Richardson Streets, is dedicated to Year 12, VCE and International Baccalaureate students. A separate visual arts facility, Studio 120, rounds out the college's footprint. Albert Park College sat its first VCE cohort in 2016 and has built a reputation for strong academic results since. The school runs an annual Open Day and school tours for prospective families, and enrolment priority goes to students living within the school zone, followed by those with siblings already attending. With close to 200 staff and around 1600 students, it's grown into one of the larger secondary options for families in the Albert Park, Middle Park and South Melbourne area.